macOS New App Release – My IP 2.3

Product Announcements – Tension Software of Milano, Italy has released My IP 2.3 for macOS, a utility app to see with which public IP address you are connected to the net (different from your IP address inside your LAN). It can work also in background and can optionally show the current IP in the menu bar.

The public IP is the IP address you use to connect to the global net, the address the rest of the world see you at. The public IP address sometimes can be static (always the same), sometimes dynamic (changed by the internet provider over time at any connection).

Obtaining the IP value of your connection could be not easy, particularly if you are behind a modem router. In the case you are using a modem router, using normal system utilities, your IP address will be indicated as equal to your LAN (Local Area Network) IP address, with is really just your address inside your local network, totally different from your true external public IP address on the internet.
Your internal IP address has no value outside your local area network.

My IP works instead indicating always your true internet IP address, the one the world can see you at, detecting the IP address your modem router uses to connect with the rest of the world, with is the address the rest of the world identify you and can use to connect to you.

Knowing your true public IP address is mandatory in many situations where you have to specify, especially for external use, at which address you are and can be reached by servers or desktops outside of your LAN.

My IP offers a simple and intuitive interface, a fast use and the option to work with 4 different servers to show your public IP address. It can optionally display the IP in the menu bar also when in the background and log the IP changes on disk. The log can be rewetted at any time.

Features:

• Fast and easy to use
• Useful to know your public IP address behind a modem router with a shared IP
• Able to show your public IP where usually system utility fails showing just your LAN IP
• Instant result available at launch
• Can use 4 different servers to calculate your public IP
• Can log the IP and its changes on a log on disk
• Can optionally display in the menu bar the current Ip also when in background
• Copy the IP from within other applications from the menu bar.
• Includes embedded PDF User Guide
• Has a similar native version for the iPhone , ‘My Public IP’ available on iTunes

New in this release:

• Layout and Interface Update
• Possibility to use a shorter check IP interval (from 5 seconds to 59:59)
• Bug fixes
• Various Optimization

System Requirements:

• macOS
• 1.6 MB

Pricing and Availability:
My IP 2.3 is just $2.99 USD (or an equivalent amount in other currencies) and is available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Utilities category.

Review of “Irontown Blues”

Book Reviews – “Irontown Blues” eBook was published in 2018 (August) and was written by John Varley (https://varley.net). Mr. Varley has published 14 novels. This novel is set in his “Eight Worlds” universe.

I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The story is set in the future on the Moon colony. The primary character is Christopher Bach a sometimes cop and part-time private detective. His genetically enhanced bloodhound Sherlock is also a significant part of the story.

Bach lives as though he is part of the 1930s-40s era mystery genre books and movies he loves. He is engaged by a woman to investigate a crime but finds himself involved in a hunt of biohackers in the dangerous Irontown district of the Moon colony.

I thought that this was an odd 6 hour read of 304 pages. It is both science fiction and a mystery, though mostly mystery. I finished the novel, though I am not sure if I liked it very much. The cover art seems appropriate. I give this novel a 3.8 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Short World War II Film – “A Rough Day”

Short Films – WWII – This short (19:39) World War II era film “A Rough Day” was uploaded to YouTube in December of 2015 by Benjamin Pollari. Mr. Pollari wrote, produced and directed the film. The synopsis:

The story of a WWII Sergeant who must decide between completing a mission or the safety of his men.

I think that this is one of the better WWII short films I have seen so far. Some of the equipment looked out of place, but overall I think they did a good job with the film.

If you are a student of the World War II era in history, you may find my pages “World War II Sources” and “World War II Timeline” of interest.

macOS New app Release – AudFree DRM Audio Converter

Product Announcements – AudFree Software of Shenzhen, Guangdong , as a top leader in the multimedia developing field, has been working audio solutions to free all music addicts from any audio annoyance. In order to help online streaming music users of Apple Music, iTunes, Audible or other services, it recently launched a new product called AudFree DRM Audio Converter, a one-stop streaming audio solution to convert DRM-ed audios, including Apple Music songs, iTunes & Audible audiobooks, as well as non-DRM audio files to MP3, WAV, FLAC, AAC for playing on any popular media playing device.

Due to DRM, it’s impossible to play Apple Music and iTunes/Audible audiobooks on common MP3 players or non-authorized devices. Therefore, a dedicated decrypting tool is highly required to break the limit from those specific audios. As a most comprehensive audio conversion tool, AudFree Audio Converter for Mac works as a perfect DRM remover for Apple Music, iTunes songs, audiobooks and Audible AA, AAX files. By using this software, you can easily convert the protected Apple Music M4P songs and Audible AA/AAX audiobooks to unprotected MP3, M4A, AAC, WAV, FLAC and M4B.

In addition to an exclusive DRM removal solution, AudFree Audio Converter also serves as an all-in-one toolkit for non-DRM audios. It converts between all popular audio file formats without losing any quality.

No matter what types of audios you are converting, encrypted or non-encrypted, AudFree DRM Audio Converter is able to keep the original ID3 tags and metadata info in output files, including the audio title, cover, album, artist, chapters, and so forth. And users are allowed to change the audio quality flexibly by customizing the parameters like audio codec, bit rate, sample rate, and more.

Better still, when converting Audible AA and AAX audiobooks with AudFree, it can preserve the 100% lossless quality of the original files. And thanks to the built-in audio splitter, you can easily cut the large audiobook file into small segments by chapters or fixed time frames.

Pricing and Availability:
AudFree DRM Audio Converter is available on its official online store now with $39.95 single user license and $54.95 (USD) family pack. It’s provided with both Mac and Windows versions. The very first version is fully compatible with the latest iTunes version on most OS.

Episode #3 of “Sage Alexander: The Dark Realm”

If you have not seen either of the two prior episodes, you should begin viewing with Episode #1.

Short Films– The third short (13:53) episode of the Sage Alexander prequel “The Rooms are Alive” was uploaded to YouTube by TigerBeat TV on July 27. The synopsis:

Sage enters the Dark Realm with strict orders not to alter the past — and possibly the future — by interfering with what he may witness in there. In the meantime, the five other young warriors get further lured into the Dark Realm and meet a surprising face. Can they work together to find a way out? Will Sage play it safe or risk the future when he hears desperate calls for help?

View episode #4

Episode #2 of “Sage Alexander: The Dark Realm”

If you haven’t seen it already, start viewing with episode #1 before you watch this episode.

Short Films – The second short (10:47) episode of the Sage Alexander prequel “Are We All Going to Die?” was uploaded to YouTube by TigerBeat TVon July 20. I do think this one was better than the first. I am glad that friend Ashlea Rae has a larger role in this episode. The synopsis:

Sage still feels unprepared to enter the Dark Realm, so grandpa Alexander begins to memory share with him. He continues to recount the story of the young warriors who set out to find a portal to the Dark Realm… Will they find it? And will Sage finally feel ready to enter it himself?

View Episode #3

Review of “The Relic Hunters”

Book Reviews – “The Relic Hunters” eBook was published in 2018 and was written by David Leadbeater (https://www.davidleadbeater.com). Mr. Leadbeater has published more than 25 novels. This is the first in his “The Relic Hunters” series.

I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence and Mature Language. The primary character is Guy Bodie, the leader of an elite group of thieves that specialize in stealing relics.

Bodie has been betrayed by a friend and is in a Mexican prison. He is broken out by the CIA on the condition that he, and his team, work for them. A secret group holds the Statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It had long been thought destroyed. Now at the behest of the CIA Bodie and his team follow a dangerous set of clues to find the statue.

I enjoyed the 3.5 hours I spent reading this 280 page thriller. The team is made of an odd collection of criminals each with a unique skill. While the concept of an elite team going head-to-head with a clandestine organization is not new, I did enjoy this author’s twist on the plot. I will be looking for future novels in this series. The cover art chosen is OK.  I give this novel a 4.4 (rounded down to a 4) out of 5.

My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).

Do you Engage in Tsundoku?

Books – I, like probably most of you, had never heard of Tsundoku before reading this article. What is Tsundoku? It is a Japanese term used to describe a person who owns a lot of unread literature. I learned about this in the article “Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them“. Contrary to what you might think, this is not a new term. Evidence reveals that it appeared in print in Japanese as early as 1879.

For myself, I have tried to curb my tendency towards Tsundoku over the past few years. That is much harder now that you can find free/low-cost eBooks to download. At least earlier you had to make the decision to actually spend money to add to your growing book collection.

That said, I do have a few dozen books I have purchased over the years waiting for me to pick them up and be read. I have even more eBooks that I downloaded to my Kindle reader App. One day may I will get to them all.

macOS New app Release – Orders 1.3

Product Announcements – Tension Software of Milano, Italy has released Orders 1.3, an application for Mac to archive your company sales orders, typically coming in tabled or form orders, after a previous preprocessing or directly from web servers or other sources. The Orders application is just a part of your work chain and it doesn’t try to do it all.

Orders is about just one thing, archive your orders in a stable, secure place, easily maintainable and searchable, for successive output and post-processing and for any successive use.

It can import from CSV (comma separated values), CSV-S (char separated values using a semicolon) and FORM text files, and accepting different encoding formats. It can import also from ‘form’ format, from text files with a single record per file.

Orders provide an easy search and filter method to search inside all your records with preset periods: today, yesterday, current week, the previous week, current month, previous month, current year, the previous year.

It can import unattended and in an automatic way, processing at regular time interval your orders, archiving them in the internal database and moving processed input files in another folder.

What’s new:

• Table now ordered in a Non-case sensitive mode
• Table selection shows instantly how many selected and sum amount of selection
• Selection dialog to specify form import folders improved
• Bug fixes
• Optimization

System Requirements:

• macOS Version 10.10 or higher
• 3.8 MB

Pricing and Availability:
Orders 1.3 is just $19.99 USD (or an equivalent amount in other currencies) and is available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Productivity category.

Coffee and Caffeine – Of Course There Is An Algorithm​ For Optimum Consumption

Coffee – Many of us brew coffee first thing in the morning and begin our daily consuption. The U.S. Army researched the consuption of coffee and found that there is an algorithm we can follow to achieve optimum alertness. The results of the study indicates that people’s performance on an attention task can be improved by up to 64 percent. When the algorithm is followed, caffeine consumption can be reduced by up to 65% while still maintaining elevated levels of performance.

As a result of the research a web-based tool 2B‐Alert Web has been developed to help predict a person’s alertness based on their sleep time and caffeine consumption.

The study “Caffeine dosing strategies to optimize alertness during sleep loss” was published in the Journal of Sleep Research on May 28, 2018.

I don’t drink coffee intending to enhance my alertness these days. I drink it because I simply like the taste. However, if you are in a position where alertness is essential to your job, this may be something to look into.